


Jack will always be a hunter

by Gecko47



Category: Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Genre: Completed, Crack, Gen, Housemates, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Jack being Jack, Jack is a savage, Modern AU, Not Medically Accurate, Older, One Shot, Oneshot, Ralph is very angry, Roombas, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, age is unspecified, choir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26603143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gecko47/pseuds/Gecko47
Summary: Jack picks a fight with a roomba and ends up throwing it down the stairs.The other boys are not pleased.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Jack will always be a hunter

For the record it was one bastard of a roomba.

It was even worse than Piggy. Bumbling around their shared house, crying out like a pathetic newborn every time it needed its battery changed or its trash holder emptied. Sometimes stopping under the furniture and forcing the boys to reorganize an entire room just to pull its beeping disk body into the open.

Jack was going to put a stop to this. The others didn’t know it, but he was going to rescue them from the robotic tyrant. Really, it was no trouble for him, being their savior and all-

As his features creased into a thin smile, he decided the job itself would be his reward.

The other boys werehanging out in the downstairs living area, sharing hot drinks and recovering from their choir recital. They had returned half an hour ago, and still Jack could hear them chatting. Every boy that was awake (it was about 10 pm, their recitals went late) was downstairs…except Jack, who was patrolling the upstairs halls. He hadn’t even taken off his uniformed cloak: it fluttered behind him like a pair of crows wings as he crept lightly.

_You’re in my sight._

A familiarly pleasant chill ran down his spine as he lifted his weapon - a broom. The irony of destroying the roomba with an object of a similar purpose - it made him smile. But this broom was different, because he had spent an unordinary amount of time sharpening one end of it into a spear.

The metal disk scuttled down the hall, collecting paper scraps and dust as it drifted on its many wheels. Jack tip-toed behind it, the stick poised. He wanted to stab through its glowing green button, right in the middle, but to do that he had to get closer.

Naive bot. It hadn’t been programed with fight-or-flight instincts. Just a sitting little duck.

As Maurice gave a shout of laugher from downstairs, Jack hurled the spear at it- but he missed. The spear edge pierced the carpet and stuck there, a diagonal pole with a big, hairy broom pointed at him. The roomba bumped into it, beeped, then changed direction. In horror, Jack watched as its circular body slipped underneath the hall couch where the boys occasionally passed out when they were too tired to find their rooms.

Cursing, he wrenched the broom out of the carpet and lowered himself to his hands and knees. The cloak flopped over his back and pooled around him as he pressed his cheek to the floor. There was a crack between the couch and the floor just large enough for the roomba to slip under, but too small for Jack to fit his arm in after it. That didn’t stop him from trying, though.

_Damn it. I need Simon’s tiny hands-_

“Hey there, Merridew,” came a voice. Jack whipped his head around, eyes wide. Someone had found him!

Thankfully that ‘someone’ was Percival, who was basically a ‘no one.’ Young, timid, and always sounding like he was on the verge of tears, he fixed Jack with a wary stare.

“Hey yourself,” Jack said through gritted teeth.

“Is there something in there?” Percival made a move to go closer. Jack seized his cloak and yanked it, making the black wing flutter and startling the younger boy backwards.

Jack scowled at him. He had just realized that if he turned his arm, he was able to stuff it up to his elbow in the gap. His plan of dragging out and brutally smashing the hell out of the machine did not include Percival goggling at him.

“It’s a little beastie,” he replied in a low, contemplative tone.

Percival’s face went white. He drew his hands up to his chest, like he was worried something would jump out and bite them, “So, like, a mouse?”

“Worse.”

“A rat?”

“Even worse.”

“ _A snake_?”

Jack gave him a toothy smile and Percival immediately bolted for his room. Down the hall, his door slammed shut. Knowing him, he wasn’t going to come out again at all tonight.

The roomba was on the move again, slipping out the opposite side of the couch. Jack leapt on top of the cushions so he could watch it go from a higher perch. It was drifting away from him, perhaps a degree faster than before. He grinned. He loved the thrill of the ‘hunt.’

_Maybe if I smear dust on myself, it’ll come towards me!_ He debated, but there was no way he was stopping his rampage just to apply some filthy makeup. He was too into it.

Jack caught up with it with a few strides. The roomba had stopped at the base of the stairs. Directly down were the boys, talking cheerfully in their hoarse tired-of-singing voices. But why wasn’t the machine moving?

_There._

Ralph or maybe Piggy - the two responsible idiots who bought the damn thing - had created a small invisible boundary so the vacuum wouldn’t drive over the edge and tumble down the stairs. There were two mechanical fence posts on either side of the frame, beaming a wall that only the vacuum could see.

It waited, its robot brain trying to calculate where it would go…

Jack made the choice a tad easier by drawing back his spear like a golf club - grinning manically - and with a resounding _thwack,_ sending the bloody thing crashing down the stairs.

The laughter stopped abruptly. Grinning, Jack casually descended and delicately stabbed the ruined hunk of metal through with his spear. He raised it above his head in triumph.

The other boys had differing reactions. SamnEric laughed, in a worried sort of way like ‘oh no, he’s about to get in serious trouble.’ Piggy went white in the face, then screwed up his eyes in disbelief. Simon just stared ahead, blankly transfixedand curious. Roger was smiling (he didn’t smile much, and when he did, it making him look a little like a goblin). Maurice was flopped over the table in convulsions of laughter. The other choir boys were mostly just vaguely amused but very confused.

And Ralph.

Oh boy, Ralph was _pissed_.

“But- but - Jack, _why_?” He managed to get out, his face a bright crimson. He grabbed a handful of his hair, like he might pull it out (which would be a shame. No one else had such fair hair - also he’d look horrible bald). “ _WHY? Why do you do this?_ ” Ralph cried.

“You should be thanking me,” Jack replied. “This thing was a burden to us,” he moved his wrist and the hunk of metal spun around on its stick.

Piggy frowned, “That could be dangerous-“

“Wait, why does he have a spear?” Sam asked suddenly.

“That’s not a spear, it’s a broom,” Eric turned to his brother.

“Yeah but he sharpened one edge of it! You could stab out someone’s heart with that!”

Ralph tried to speak a few times, but his voice was drowned out by the yammering of confusion. Jack lifted his death stick proudly, soaking in the attention. If they weren’t going to admire the kill, they might as well admire the hunter.

“GUYS!” Piggy clapped his hands together. The overlapping speaking stopped. “Ralph is TRYING TO SAY SOMETHING-“ he pointed. A few of the boys rolled their eyes at him and Piggy just frowned, “The floor is yours, Ralph.”

“Yeah - thanks,” Ralph looked slightly out of breath. He got off the bar stool he was sitting on and marched over to Jack.

“Watch out for his spear-“ Sam whispered from behind Eric.

“I’m not afraid of the spear,” Ralph just muttered, now standing only a foot from Jack, who looked down and gave him a smug smile. “Jack, we ALL chipped in to buy a roomba so we wouldn’t have to clean the floors. Now we’re going to have to buy a new one thanks to you.” He said sternly.

“We didn’t all vote for one. My group wanted to save up for a game table, not some vacuum,” Jack replied. Maurice wiped his eyes and nodded, while Roger crossed his arms in silent agreement. “So you were the one who took our money and bought something we didn’t even ask for!”

When Ralph couldn’t think of a compelling argument, Piggy chimed in, “We’re a tribe! Come on, we need to do some things for the better of the group, not the individual. Acting violently towards things you don’t like is very immature,”

“Yeah! If we’re out of bacon, are you going to set the whole house on fire now?” Ralph found his voice again.

Jack looked up, distracted for a moment, “Are we?”

“NOT THE POINT-“

“— that vacuum set us back 500 dollars,”

“Maybe we can fix it with — ”

“— at this point I’m not even surprised-“

“THIS is why you got banned from the laser tag place—“

“—with enough dutch tape and…“

The boys started talking over each other again, as was typically the case. Piggy gave Ralph a helpless shrug. Not even he could get them to quiet down. It was a solid wall of scorn and chastisement…and Jack didn’t even feel embarrassed.

“Guys…guys…can you hear it?”

Everyone stopped talking and turned to Simon in alarm. It was the first thing he had said since Jack arrived. Now he was pointing at Jack, no, at the robot on the end of his spear.

“Can you? Or is it just one of my times?” Simon looked back at the others, who had gone strangely silent.

“Hey, er, you’re probably just exhausted,” Ralph hurried over to Simon, his hand landing on his shoulder, “Come on, we’ve been up too late anyway. Exhaustion’s a trigger, isn’t it?”

“I think so?”

As he led Simon up the stairs, Ralph threw an eyeful of daggers at Jack. A look that clearly said ‘we’re finishing this later.’

But once he was gone upstairs, Jack casually set the robot in the middle of the table. “Well, it can’t get any more broken. Who wants to beat the crap out of it in the driveway? I have more sticks.”

“ME!”

“YES!”

“Wait, where?”

“DEATH TO THE ROOMBA!”

And so Simon was perfectly fine in the morning.

Ralph later forced Jack to pay him back as well as destroyed his stash of spears (but he only found Jack’s decoy stash, the idiot).

They found all that was left outside was a pile of screws, warped plastic, and shredded wiring.

Piggy reluctantly had to clean it all up with a dustpan.


End file.
